Romantasy, the Olympics and Canada’s Most-Read Day in 2024: Insights from the Rakuten Kobo 2024 Book Report

TORONTO - December 16, 2024 - From Romantasy reigning supreme to turning the most pages on Mondays, Rakuten Kobo explores the most notable trends in Canadians' digital reading habits this year in their 2024 Book Report*.

Whether turning pages or listening intently, Canadians escaped the Monday blues through digital reading - spending the equivalent of over 1,300 years immersed in storytelling on the first day of the week alone. Perhaps to no surprise, the least amount of pages were turned on Fridays. TGIF? 

This year, Canada’s most-read day was Family Day (February 19) - a high point leading into a surprising spring slump for our eBook enthusiasts as Canadians took advantage of the end of winter. However, our audiobook aficionados stayed consistent throughout the year, listening to the equivalent of over 8,732 years in 2024.

Sports, sports, sports

Canadians were inspired to learn more about the Olympics this year, picking up 50 per cent more non-fiction books on the iconic games compared to last year. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown was the most-read book on the subject for the second year in a row, followed by the story of a controversial Canadian Olympian in World's Fastest Man: The Incredible Life of Ben Johnson by Mary Ormsby. 

Beyond non-fiction, Canadians celebrated athletes by picking up even more Sports Romances like Consider Me by Becka Mack this year. In true Canadian fashion, seven out of the 10 of the most-read books in the genre were hockey-themed. We just can’t help ourselves, eh?

Leaning into Learning

Canadians turned to digital reading this year to educate themselves on timely topics, resulting in a six per cent increase in non-fiction reading compared to 2023. While celebrity memoirs took centre stage last year, this year, Canadians looked to the past and the future with history and self-help books like The Art Thief by Michael Finkel and Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy.

Books on Palestine and AI both saw a huge increase in interest this year, with Canadians picking up 97.8 per cent more books on Palestine this year compared to last year. Similarly, interest in books on AI jumped by 56 per cent as Canadians continued to navigate this new technological landscape.

Novel Inspirations

As with last year, page-to-screen adaptations continued to attract new readers, with some of the year’s biggest on-screen hits drawing inspiration from the page. After Shōgun dominated the awards circuit, the hit show’s fans couldn’t get enough - leading the 1975 novel by A.L. Sadler that it was based on to see a 1281 per cent increase in readership. The Idea of You by Robinne Lee and Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty also saw readers flock to their source material in droves this year with increases of 892 per cent and 497 per cent respectively, while Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us stayed steady as the most read page-to-screen adaptation.

Another title we’re starting to see defy gravity as the characters take to the silver screen? Wicked by Gregory Maguire saw a 769 per cent increase in sales from October to November alone. Popular, indeed!

#BookTok and the Maas Effect

Thanks to a boost from #BookTok, Romantasy reigned supreme in 2024 - with Sarah J. Maas holding court with six titles on the top 20 bestselling eBooks of the year, and four of the top 10 bestselling fiction books of the year. Whether you’re team Rhysand or Tamlin, we can all agree that that’s an achievement worthy of Feyre’s heart!

Canada’s top 10 bestselling eBooks of 2024

Canada’s top 10 bestselling audiobooks of 2024

What a year! You can find all of the best-selling and most-read titles, plus much more, at kobo.com.

^{*According to Rakuten Kobo’s internal readership data.}